The Continuous Loop

Critical Essay Response and Summary

For my Blog Post this week I decided to summarize the article “Closing the Loop: White Noise” by Tom LeClair. The reason why is because Tom LeClair helped me understand more about the book and made sense about certain things that were happening with the “White Noise” that I did not fully understand. Tom LeClair was a professor at the University of Cincinnati and he wrote his article in 1986. During the beginning of LeClair’s article he is comparing the White Noise to other books that were out at the current time. “Although generically and rhetorically doubled, White Noise, when compared with The Names or even with Americana, is structurally and stylistically simple,” (390).  LeClair believed that the only reason why the White Noise was so popular was because how the plot was written within the story and how it appealed to readers of different kinds. During LeClair’s article he talks about the three different parts that are within the “White Noise”, he goes into detail about these events and how they are themes in the story. 

I really enjoyed this article and it helped me understand more about the White Noise. The only problem that I had with it was at the beginning of the article were LeClair seemed to be jumping around from topic to topic. I agree with LeClair that DeLillo does take universal fear and exaggerates them to a point where they are filled with foolishness just for an ironic effect. “DeLillo’s is the noise of disaster and the noise of mystery,” (411). 

LeClair, Tom. Closing the loop:White Noise. New York, New York: Penguin Group, 1986. 387-411. Print. 

Responding to Noise

 I decided to write a poem about the themes of the story, White Noise, which we have dealt with so far since I love poetry and would often write it as a young angst teenager. I have not written a poem in over 4 years, so I may be a little rusty! J I hope that you enjoy it! The theme that I am talking about is the changing world and the fear of death along with the “white noise” of the modern world. It is a major theme in the novel and the author Don DeLillo showcases how humanity has a dominating fear of death. 

The call of the modern world echoes out into the unknowing white noise,

silently and in shades it stalks its prey,

a monster with no teeth nor blood,

but a creation made by the hand of man,

it feels no pain nor suffers,

it cares not who it takes in its grasp,

Bright, shining, and shimmering is the beast,

Beautiful beyond belief but twisted and rotten,

is it in its illusion,

the beast gives only pain,

and a future filled with decay,

to embrace it and become one with the disease,

or to deny and die it has no mercy.

 

Mid-Term Letter

Dear Professor Cline,

Hello, so far my biggest challenge when it comes to the class so far is the grammar and the right punctuation when it comes to writing essays. I am the type of person that likes everything to be prefect and I love to write, so when I see that I did not use the right type of structure for a paper it slightly bothers me. But I take what I got wrong and learn from it, I try to prefect my writing art and do better the next time around. I like to learn new ways and techniques on how to improve my writing, so when it comes to criticism I take it and learn from it. My biggest success when it comes to this class is when I realized that I am a good writer and that the techniques and lessons that I am learning are helping me become even better. The readings of the class have definitely been interesting! I really enjoyed the story about Bartleby the Scrivener, I did not know what a scrivener was until I read the story. It was interesting how many different ways that the story could be analyzed and how many different elements were within the story. When I first read the story I thought that Bartleby was an actual person but came to re-read the story and through your teachings learned that Bartleby was not what he seemed to be! When it came to the reading of Jonathan Swift’s essay, I was disturbed! I did not truly understand what Swift meant but thanks to you, you helped me understand that Swift wanted the wealthy to eat the babies rather than them working! Literary analysis in my opinion is more structured than other types of writing that I have done in college. When analyzing a reading you have to look at all the fine details rather than just the large picture. I have to say that I like literary analysis compared to other forms of writing that I have done in college. My goals for the second half of the class is to become an even better writer and learn more about the different techniques and structures. I want to improve as much as I can and see how my writing can change from what it is now. I would like to say thank you very much for helping me with my writing and for teaching me this semester! I have had a lot of fun and learned so much from your teachings! I can’t wait to see what else I can learn! Have a wonderful day!

Sincerely,

Ashley Weigand!

Tentative Thesis Paragraph

Tentative Thesis Paragraph

 Google Images of Jonathan Swift, Comedy Central

 

During the eighteenth and nineteenth century the population of the world hit a rising spike which left many people looking for solutions to this problem. A man by the name of Jonathan Swift wrote an essay entitled, “A Modest Proposal”, which contained his ideals of how to deal with the growth in population. Though his essay was titled “modest” it was far from it, the essay included many morbid and down-right gross ideas of how to deal with the population increase. Swift mainly focused his ideas on his homeland of Ireland where the poor were outnumbering the wealthy and mothers with their children on the streets begging. Swift’s ideas were more of a way to make fun of the wealthy and the situation that the poor were living in. At the beginning of Swift’s essay, the essay was supposed to open the eyes of the reader to a wide arrange of emotions, and the way that he used satire to show the needs of the poor. The essay was written with tones of humor at the beginning but towards the end, Swift takes a more serious way of conceiving his readers to be more charitable towards the poor. 

Here is a link that talks about the eighteenth century population increases and its culture at the time: http://wps.ablongman.com/long_kishlansky_cw_6/35/9181/2350389.cw/index.html